So, Stephen releases the kids to go play hockey. I am positive that we are taking about field hockey. I think its a football vs. soccer type of thing.
The kids hustle out, leaving one kid named Cyril Sargent. Automatically, I feel persuaded to like this kid.
"Sargent who along had lingered came forward slowly, showing an open copybook. His thick hair and scraggy neck gave witness of unreadiness and through his misty glasses weak eyes looked up pleading."
Seriously.
Cyril comes to Stephen looking for help. Mr. Deasy, I am assuming another teacher, had instructed this kid to copy some math from a chalk board and show it to Mr. Dedalus. Still not understanding the work Stephen starts helping him out.
"Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility"
What is futile? Does Stephen not have much hope for this kid?
And here we go.
"Ugly and Futile: lean neck and thick hair and a stain of ink, a snail's bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and her heart. But for her the race of the world would have trampled him underfoot, a squashed boneless snail. She loved his weak watery blood drained from her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in life? His mother's prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode. She was no more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes. She had saved him from being trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poor soul gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth. listened scraped up the earth, listened scraped and scraped.
"Ugly and Futile: lean neck and thick hair and a stain of ink, a snail's bed."
I'm not really sure what a snail's bed is, although I did go on learn a bit about snail anatomy, it is bizarre. Snails and Turtles both. Such inconvenient creatures, you look at them, or at least I do, and think, these beast are carrying protection on their backs, but that's not quite right is it? A snail carries a shell in same manner that I carry a butt above my legs. I'm not really sure what my point is, other than I tend to find it easy to look at creature like a turtle and say, "ok, here is a turtle, and here is its shell, like they are two separate things. I see snail and think, yeah, that snail needs to have a shell, for protection. Though in actuality, that snail IS that shell, and that shell IS that snail. Just like my butt is me and I am my butt. Why not? I just think it's good to remind my self of that sometimes.
She loved his weak watery blood drained from her own. Was that then real?
What is he asking? Is the love from a mother to son real? More real than love in a different kind of relationship? Stephen had a weird relationship with his mom. Remember when Buck and him talked about not praying at her death bed. I don't think Stephen is so apathetic that he doesn't comprehend that love between a mother and a child, even if he himself has never experienced it. So what is he asking?
"The only true thing in life?" cf. "The soul is in a manner all that is: the soul is the form of forms" ****15
"His mothers prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode
The fiery and passionate Columbanus bestode Cyril Sargent's mother.
*Last chance edit. Why did Stephen use Columbanus here? Obviously, He is not Sargent's father. We are using a saint and an Irish icon to describe a pretty imaginative sexual act. Quite blasphemous, I would think. Is he inferring that his holy man, is just as feral as anyone else? We have already heard him go on about all of the catholic hypocrites. Are we saying that Sargent is born from catholic savagery?
or
Maybe we are saying that Cyril's mom did a Mrs. Gump, and gave herself to the savage Catholics to insure that her small, weak child would survive in this world?
I think that might be it*
She was no more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire,
She was gone. burnt to almost nothing.
"an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes." cf.****3-4 "Her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, Her breath, that had bent upon him him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes "
The second quote line was from the second page. I didn't put it down before because I was in a different phase of not know what I am doing. He is talking about his dream of his own mother.
"A poor soul gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth, listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped."
The poor soul of Sargent's mother go to heaven: and on an area of uncultivated land, during the night, there is a fox, this fox has embodied the look and smell of violent theft of property. he has intense bright eyes, it listened, and when the coast is clear, he digs in to the ground.
Isn't this pretty amazing?
Let's start with mothers. Sargent's mom is dead, Stephen's mom is dead. Well actually, I lost where I was going to go with that.
But the riddle though. I still don't get it, but Stephen plays with it when we goes on with Sargent's familiar situation, with some differences too. The riddle takes place in the morning, during daylight. and this fox seems to be digging something up at night.
Also just a quick thought that Grand can also mean big and important.
Stephen sweeps through and tackles the algebra for the boy.
"He proves by algebra that Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlets grandfather"
I wish I had mentioned this before. Stephen is connecting this moment, with an earlier one where Buck is talking Kinch up about his theory about Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlet's grandfather.
We have now mentioned 2 mothers, a grandmother and a grandfather. It doesn't mean anything.
"Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes. Give hands, traverse, bow to partner: so: imps of fancy of the Moors. Gone too from the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the world, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend."
"Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice in the mummery of their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes.
The symbols moved across in a sad dance, in the costumes of their letters, wearing quaint caps and cubes.
I find it strange that we mix two things which seem to me be happy occasions, mumming and Morris dancing with the word grave. I think I get why. Stephen got his thoughts all in a sad place, talking about dead moms, he relates and attaches this gloominess to the kid. If that's the case, why would he would he use the metaphors of dancing and Christmas traditions?
Another thought that I find more interesting:
The symbols moving in the mummery(disguise, costume) of there letters.
Letters and numbers, they are all symbols that represent something else. Which if you want to drive yourself crazy, you can take that idea and keep going upward with it. Take the letter "A" What is it? Well, it is the base of a bunch alphabets. It is an indication, a representation, or even a symbol of top quality, "grade A choice beef" A+ on a book report. It is an indefinite article that modifies English words that begin with consonants. If we try hard enough, we can come up with all kinds of things. But what is it before all of that? It is three lines: two lines leaning against each other, hold a shelf in the middle. What is it beneath that? It is a sound, scratch that. It's
actually a bunch of sounds. Ask Charles Sellers, the mayor of Blowing Rock, North Carolina and Aðalheiður Borgþórsdóttir, the mayor of Seyðisfjörður to make an "A" sound and you will probably get some big differences. A lot of things are symbols of other things, and when you rely on symbols to communicate, you will have a hard time communicating exactly what you mean. An A doesn't mean the same to everyone. I don't see that as a big jump from what Plato was talking about. Everything that we see around us. is just an inadequate representation or symbol of bigger other-worldly thing.
That was a first idea, that serves as a base to hold for more complicated ideas, in the years to come.
To get back on point though. Thinking about symbols in a costume of letters, in this sense, I find very pleasing.
Give hands, traverse, bow to partner: so: imps of fancy of the Moors.
We're still playing with words, but this time we jump to the grave morrice
Give hands, traverse, bow to partner: so: Small mischievous devils of imagination of the Mediterranean Muslim club
partner: so: imps
I think: that I: am being: messed with.
Gone too from the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the world, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend."
Gone too from the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement,
Also no longer in the world, Averroes, the Muslim, and Moses Maimonides the Jew who explained Aristotle. Dark complicated men of similar vibes.
flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the world
(reflecting?) in their mocking mirrors the ill-defined soul of the world
or
Showing their world how ridiculous everything is.
or
Showing to the world an a mocking manner how much Muslims, who are also fellow human beings, have brought to the world.
or
Showing to a world that mocks the them, How much Muslims, who are also fellow human beings, have brought to the world.
a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend."
Dark complicated Muslims, achieving a great deal in a world of light complected Europeans, of which the Europeans did not understand.
or
Non-Christians bringing new social ideas that Christians did not understand.
or
Dark complected folks, become relevant in a light complected would, and the Light complected folks did not understand, how that was possible
or
Muslims inventing algebra, bringing in a new understanding to how everything works, which a light complected young man named Cyril Sargent doesn't understand. Because Algebra is really hard.
Sargent finally gets it.
"In long shaky strokes Sargent copied the data. Waiting always for a word of help his hand moved faithfully and unsteady symbols, a faint hue of shame flickering behind his dull skin. Amor Matris: subjective and objective genitive. With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had fed him and hid from sight of other his swaddling bands
Amor Matis: subject and object genitive
This has two meanings:
The subjective genitive: A mother's love for her child.
or
The objective genitive: A child's love for their mother.
Sargent gets it all figured out, and scampers off to play hockey with they others.
The two people in different stages in life have the same mother issues. Although, this is all going in Stephen's head and he might be projecting quite a bit. This whole page, we're not talking about Sargent and his mom so much as we are talking about Stephen and his.
Glossary
Asunder - to be split up, separated, scattered about.
Prostrate - to lay on your stomach, face down (sometimes in submission. To severally overpower someone.
Bestrode - Past tense of bestride, to stand over or to straddle or mount.
Rapine - The act of violently stealing someone's property.
Askance - To be suspicious or skeptical
Mummery - A ridiculous ceremonial, especially a religious one
Amor matris - Latin "Mother's love"
Polymath - Evidently doesn't mean mathematician, It is a Greek word meaning "having learned much" The Romans would have said homo universalis, meaning "universal man" . It just means someone knows a lot of things, and is able to fix a lot of problems, Think Leonardo da Vinci.
Moor - This is what Christian Europeans used to call Muslims who lived around the Mediterranean Sea: Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Sicily, etc. This name would eventually turn into a "somewhat" what derogatory European term for Muslims in general.
*Last chance edit. I put somewhat in quotes because I don't feel good suggesting I know what what is or isn't derogatory outside of my own culture. The word is not used my world, and I have only seen it once before in another book. Anyway, here it is. Do what you want with it.
Mien - An individuals vibe. An indication of someones character and mood
Mein - German equivalent of "My"
I only mention it because thought that was the word he was using. As you can imagine, this turned out to be quite confusing for me. But I figured it out.
Characters
Cyril Sargent - Stephen's student, Has trouble with Algebra. Has a dead mother
Mr. Deasy - Mr. Dedalus' Colleague
Other Things
Columbanus - St. Columbanus. Irish man born way back in 540 and died November 615. He founded a bunch of monasteries post 590, notably the Luxeuil Abby in France and the Bobbio Abbey in Italy. Do you want to know why old boy is a saint? Several reasons, but I'll tell you my favorites.
1. He escaped from a bunch of wolfs.
2 He tamed a bear and tied it to a plow
C. Destroyed a heathens glass of beer by blowing on it.
They say he also cured some folks, but who cares when you have a plow bear?
Averroes - This is the Latinized name of Ibn Rushd ابن رشد; or أبو الوليد محمد ابن
احمد ابن رشد, or The Commentator, or The Father of Rationalism. He was born April 1126, in the city Cordova in Andalusia, in southern Spain (it was called the Almoravid Empire back then) and died December 1198 in Almohad Calophate (It's called Morocco now). He is the first Muslim that I have across in this book of Christians, a polymath and legal expert who wrote about just about every subject you can think of. He is especially known for being a huge fan of our new friend Aristotle and wrote a bunch of Commentaries on his work, hence the name The Commentator.
He wrote a thesis called the Unity of the Intellect, suggesting that everybody shares the same intellect; which I'm not sure what is meant by that. Does he mean that everybody has the same level of intelligence or do we all share some kind of Jungian consciousness kind of thing? Either way this burnt the Catholics butter, and then condemned his works. Jerks.
Moses Maimonides - or (רבי משה בן מימון)This dude was born ten years prior in the same town as ابن رشد but stayed alive a little bit longer before dying in Ayyubid Sultante, (It's called Egypt now). This fella was Jewish big shot who was into Greek philosophers including guess who? Yup ol' Ari.
He wasn't in to Kabbalah and hated poetry, saying the best of it was false because it was found on pure invention.
In 1148 his city was taken over, and was forced to choose between taking up Islam, death or exile. He took exile, jumped around a bit before settling in Morocco.
Morrice Dance - Spelled Morris now, is a pretty fantastic English folk dance. They dance in beat with sticks or handkerchiefs. It first started around the middle of the 1400's
Over the years, this dance had developed different styles across the U.K.. I strongly suggest you look it up.
Mummering - Now I would enjoy the holidays so much more if we had this. In Ireland, Newfoundland/Labrado and parts of the U.K., friends and family dress up in costumes and visit their neighbors during Christmas. If these "Mummers" are welcomed in, they will do little performances like singing, or juggling, or whatever, and the host has to guess who they are before giving them giving them food or beverages. If they get it right, then they just hang out for while. How awesome is that?
*Last chance edit. lol Columb anus*
